>> The network would have a complete and accurate map of vehicles on the road, so that car navigation systems would be able to plot their way around the traffic with confidence.

No it wouldn't because not everything that is allowed on the road would of could be fitted with the system. Pedestrians, horses, cyclists would all be impractical to fit transponders to. Are we also suggesting that every traffic cone will need to be fitted with one?

The whole idea of self-driving cars using current technology is laughably impractical.

Looking at this the other way around perhaps the business models in common use today among cloud computing vendors are not appropriate for their target markets.

Why should IT budget setting and management shift focus away from cost control, particulary in todays economic climate, just because cloud computing vendors have not got their act together?

>> We own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on soundcards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are, in effect, stealing our goods.

Translation: We intentionally didn't provide decent drivers for existing products so that users would be forced to upgrade their soundcards after installing Vista. By providing working drivers you have deprived Creative of these potential sales.

>>I wouldn't be so sure of this. Are you really implying most people would be happy to see films go away? I don't think so. And as for recorded music, there seems no real evidence that a majority of the population is keen to go through life with no way to have music playing at home, in the car, or when walking around with an iPod.

As I said they either don't care enough about it to pay the price being asked or they don't think about the consequences of mass-piracy. How does the 3-strikes policy address either of these issues?

>>Instead, each individual filesharer seems to assume that they alone won't make the difference between content going away of not, as long as enough unspecified other people pay. The problem is the denial of the logical conclusion that if *everyone* does this, there will be nobody left to pay. And that removing copyright would make this much more likely.

I agree, how does the 3-strikes policy or any legislation fix this problem? It doesn't; what is needed is a cultural change which is something that neither the government nor the record companies can do.

>>Somebody who didn't value recorded music might, instead, be expected to limit themselves to family members playing a piano at home and/or reading books.

Why would they restrict themselves when both are free (once you buy the equipment)? All I'm suggesting is that many freeloaders do want to listen to recorded music if its free but don't care enough about it to pay for it.

But again I make the point that if too few people care enough about recorded music to pay for it then it is inevitable that the music industry will shrink and may dissappear. It doesn't matter whether you think this is good or bad.

The music indusry seems to be slowly changing, removing drm and lowering prices, but it is so far behind its consumer base that it may be too late. If they had been on top of the internet market from the beginning with good, fairly priced services then they would have been fine. What is happening to the music industry is simply a result of their lack of vision and the monopolistic way in which they operate. No amount of laws is going to change that either.

>>No URLs, browsing histories or IP addresses are retained and the raw data used to make the match is deleted in real time -- by the time the page loads. There is, in essence, no data other than the categories and the random number stored in the system and so it's impossible to know (or indeed reverse engineer from that) who you are or where you've been.

Disingeneous, the system does store the digests of each page that you load. It just deletes them afterward it has categorised the page and attached that category information to your guid. Just because something is only held in memory for a short while does not mean that it is not stored.

The fact is that Phorm is monitoring the web pages that I view in my browser and there is no way for me to opt out of this.

>>The service works on the basis of a closed system which only includes the ISP and Phorm.

How is that supposed to be reassuring when I don't want either my ISP or Phorm to monitor the web pages that I view?

I can opt out of receiving the targeted adverts that this process generates but that's not the bit that I'm worried about. Until Phorm guarantees a way for me to prevent them intercepting and monitoring the web pages that I view I will be against this. What Phorm intends to do with the data after it is intercepted is irrelevant. The assertion that the data will not leave the ISP network is irrelevant.

>>So here goes - privacy first. There's no 'largely' about it, no personally identifiable information is stored.

And Phorm is prepared to guarantee, in the form of a legaly-binding contract, that no information that could be used to identify a person will ever be present in the digest? For example if I used Google to search for my own name you can guarantee that that would be filtered out?

>It really is. I like recorded music, novels, photography, computer software and hardware, comics, movies, and television. If they went away, I would be sad.

That's not enough to sustain a whole industry. For an enterprise on the scale of the music industry to survive a large proportion of society needs to feel that way and clearly a large proportion o society does not value recorded entertainment as much as you or they don't realise what effect their actions will have. How is the 3-strikes plan a solution to either of these problems?

Having no art in the world is not a big deal if the culture at the time does not value art enough to support it.

Besides we aren't talking about art. The music industry is to great musical art what postcards of the Mona Lisa are to great paintings.

1) Even if you opt out your datastream interacts with the Phorm system. This, alone, is anough for me to oppose what is being planned. Opt out should mean fully out. Phorms comment that their system will degrade everyones browsing equally, regardless of whether they opt in or out, is not reassuring.

2) This isn't going to reduce the number of ads that I see because I already use ad-blocking technology that cuts out virtually all adverts. This is technology that I chose, that I control and that does not expose me to potential privacy breaches. I can even examine its source code if I wish. How can Phorms offering be better?

3) With ISPs desperate for revenue we all know that they are going to force this on us in the end. Sure, its all touchy-feely in the beginning but those who don't take the carrot will get the stick, probably in the form of higher prices or more restrictive ISP contracts.

4) The whole track of more relevant ads is laughable. There is no such thing as a relevant unsolicited advert. If I want to buy something then I can research products on my own. If I don't want to buy something then no amount of ramming adverts down my throat is going to change my mind. If websites need revenue then why don't they offer a no-ads/subscription option? Where available I take this option.

>>Since when has creating art been a mainstream occupation?

We aren't talking about creating art. We are talking about turning art into a profitable mass-market product that is advertised worldwide. There will always be a (comparatively) small market for music-as-art in the same way as there is a small market for paintings-as-art. However what I was referring to was the industrial production of music by an industry employing many thousands of people and expecting to earn millions in revenue in return.

One of the things that you see constantly in this debate is assertions like "if people don't pay for music then there won't be any recorded music" as if this is a big deal. What I am trying to understand is why this is a problem. Cultural products come and go as fashion and technology changes and the industries that rely on those products rise and fall in turn - just ask the sheet-music industry.

If the cultural environment changes such that people are not prepared to pay enough to keep the current music industry going then inevitably it will decline and there will be less recorded music available, both for paying customer and for freeloaders. There is no way to prevent this except by changing music so that people value it more. Legislation is, at best, a delaying tactic.

While this is bad for some people in the music industry I don't see why it matters overall. There was a time before recorded music and perhaps there will be a time after recorded music. Perhaps there will be a time when there is no recorded entertainment of any kind. Life goes on.

I simply don't see the need for special measures to protect one small and non-essential industry, let them rise or fall on the merits of their products and business plans like every other industry.

From my personal perspective the biggest problem with music is simply finding anything that I like. I've purchased 2 tracks this month and would have bought many more if only there had been anything for sale that I had liked. As long as I can remove the DRM from tracks that I have purchased I see no need to use illegal methods to get my music.